999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (DS) Review

One Thrilling Adventure.

  Nine Hours, Nine People, Nine Doors (also known as 999) is a visual novel game developed by Chunsoft (now known as Spike Chunsoft) for the Nintendo DS. Six years ago, Aksys Games took a risk bringing to the west, mainly due to them questioning if the game will do good or not. The game did sold poorly in Japan but did considerably well in the United Sates. Critics praised the game for its concepts and got some good awards. Yet despite that, it didn't get much attention from players and is considered one of the DS's overlooked games. As a person who loved the excellent Virtue's Last Reward and likes to play some overlooked and underrated games, I had to play 999. Especially, before reviewing the latest entry in the Zero Escape series, Zero Time Dilemma. So without further delays, let's get straight to into the review.

STORY- Junpei is normal college student who, along with eight other people, end up being abducted and now are stranded on a ship. Their mysterious abductor, Zero, tells them that the only way to escape the ship is to play the "Nonary Game", a life-or-death game that must play. This leads them to panic, but since they only have nine hours left before the ship sinks, they must work together to beat Zero's games. The writing is great and I found myself liking the diverse cast. Without spoiling much of the story, 999 is packed with many plot-twists and turns that'll keep you hooked through the entirety of the adventure.  

Who is Zero?

GAMEPLAY- 999 is split into two parts: novel and story sections. During novel sections, you'll reading through the story and will occasionally be presented choices that can lead you to one of the game's six endings. That's right, the game has six endings with the last being the "True Ending". You will mostly likely get a bad ending on your first run so don't get discouraged, the game allows you to skip any story events you have seen, making the process of getting all endings quick. 

Choices you make in novel sections
have an affect on the ending.

 When not focusing on story sections, you'll be solving many of Zero's puzzles mainly found in numbered doors. They range from easy to challenging. Upon entering a room, Junpei must look for clues so that he can unlock a locked door and escape it. Occasionally, you will also get key items that will useful in the novel sections. You'll be using the bottom screen and the stylus of the DS to interact with objects and solve puzzles. Some of the puzzles are math-centered, so you'll be given a calculator early on for those. As much as I liked the puzzles, they can be quite the annoyance when having to replay the game for the endings simply because you can't skip them just the story sections you've seen. So get ready to solve multiple times. 

The puzzles are interesting and will
give your brain a nice workout.

PRESENTATION- For a handheld game, and one that's on the DS, 999 looks and sounds great. While not in the same heights of The World Ends With You or Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, it's still one of the best looking games compared to the many subpar-looking games that plagued the system. The character sprites are detailed as well as the backgrounds. There's no voice-acting, though I didn't find it to be an issue. I found the soundtrack to be eerie and unsettling at times, fitting the game's tense atmosphere. 

999's diverse cast of characters.

OVERALL- I found Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors to be one of the best games on the DS. It excels at its primary focus of delivering a gripping story that's filled with many conspiracies and real-world references. The escape sequences were great, despite them being repetitive when going for the other ending. And its visuals and soundtrack are great. If you've happened to have a DS and looking for a neat story-focused game, I highly recommend 999. 

 Additionally, 999 was ported to iOS as 999: The Novel, which is a story-only version of the game, eliminating the escape sections entirely. It's been also recently announced that the game could be coming to other systems soon. Oh, I've been thinking about this for a while now and I've decided to stop scoring games and let the reviews speak for itself.